AY your posts are love. You have beautifully sketched up the entire chain of events leading to leap. I have always been wanting a forum to discuss this since I am not in in Twitter.
To begin with even I was baffled with the idea of leap since it is one and only Shivika that fetches trp and online craze. I remember laughing with my friends about the insane tracks being shown yet we bore it all because the strong mitigant was Shivikaz chemistry.
To begin with redux showed gloomier version of the always chirpy Annika and really dark, depressed SSO coupled with illogical tracks. The most lame of it was the jaadugar track which emulation of "Ajnabee" movie track. I mean it was so obvious that there was no need to build up any suspense. Such track cannot be expected fetch trp. The only reason bore was because of the lead pair chemistry.
The PH and the producer is competing with audience by introducing the leap. It is like we will go ahead do whatever you want. This very mindset is wrong as you cannot compete with your customer. You have to comply with your customer as they are the one who makes your show. They are the ones who will be watching and not friends of the actors who will wish good luck virtually and switch to Netflix.
As a viewer it is really painful to see the painful demise of beautiful couple of ITV just for the objective of cost cutting. But again this cost cutting is ridiculous because the sun has seem to set for the show.